Virtual Jewish Poetry Reading Series
Erica Baas
[email protected]
716.204.2242
Details
Join the JCC for monthly readings as part of a Jewish Poetry Series, hosted by Philip Terman and Baruch November. Each month will feature different Jewish poets reading selections of poems that include but are not limited to Jewish themes, values and ideas. Free and Open to the Public.
Hila Ratzabi, Jamie Wendt, Ed Hirsch, and Daniel Kraft
Hila Ratzabi was born in Rehovot, Israel, and raised in Queens, New York. She is the author of the poetry collection There Are Still Woods (June Road Press, 2022), which won a gold Nautilus Book Award and was a finalist for a National Indie Excellence Award. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in "Prairie Schooner", "Narrative", "Linebreak", "Alaska Quarterly Review", "The Adroit Journal", and other journals, and in "The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry" and "Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology". She holds an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College (2007) and lives outside Chicago.
Jamie Wendt is the author of the poetry collection Laughing in Yiddish (Broadstone Books, 2025), which was a finalist for the 2022 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry. Her first book, Fruit of the Earth (Main Street Rag, 2018), won the 2019 National Federation of Press Women Book Award in Poetry. Her poems and essays have been published in various literary journals and anthologies, including "Feminine Rising", "Catamaran", "Lilith", "Jet Fuel Review", "Consequence", "Atlanta Review", the "Forward", "After Hours", and others. She contributes book reviews to the Jewish Book Council and is a Poetry Reader for The Good Life Review. She won third prize in the 2024 Reuben Rose Poetry Competition and won second prize for the 2024 Holloway Free Verse Award through the Illinois State Poetry Society. Wendt holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska Omaha. She is a middle school Humanities teacher and lives in Chicago with her husband and two kids. Follow her online at https://jamie-wendt.com/ or on Instagram @jamiewendtpoet.
Edward Hirsch, a Chicago native and MacArthur Fellow, is a celebrated poet and tireless advocate for poetry. He has published ten books of poetry, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, Gabriel: A Poem, a book-length elegy for his son, and Stranger by Night. He has also published eight books of prose, among them How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, a national bestseller, 100 Poems to Break Your Heart, and The Heart of American Poetry. His new book, a stand-up comedy and Skokie elegy, is a startling memoir, My Childhood in Pieces. He has received numerous prizes, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal of Honor, and the National Jewish Book Award. He taught at Wayne State University and the University of Houston. Since 2003, he has been president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He lives in Brooklyn.
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Daniel Kraft is a writer, translator, and educator. His poems, essays, and translations from Yiddish and Hebrew appear in many publications, and he works as the program manager for Yetzirah. He has been supported by a Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellowship, and has taught at various institutions, including the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education, and the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków.